


Double Trouble (It's Been, Three Days Since You Died On Us)

by kjm126316



Series: shuffle the deck a little to the left, this time [2]
Category: Misfits (TV 2009), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus is in a bad way, Slight withdrawal, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjm126316/pseuds/kjm126316
Summary: "They keep Nathan in the disused storage room upstairs while they have community service, but take him down once night falls. It's- hard, in a word. The Probation Wanker is as irritable as ever, and once or twice they've had to hold Klaus back when Shaun says something that pushes his last button.Klaus is very tetchy these days.He fills in for Nathan, doing his community service because he's dead, and it still sucks. He hates it. He hates the jumpsuit, he hates the smell of the paint, he hates the long hours, he hates hates hates.He just wants his brother back."It's a rough three days while Nathan is out, to say the least.
Series: shuffle the deck a little to the left, this time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688623
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Double Trouble (It's Been, Three Days Since You Died On Us)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: murder (or the aftermath of it) blood, descriptions of death wounds (nothing overly so, I don't think) panic attacks, dissociation, slight withdrawals, mentions of drug use, anxiety, and someone blaming themselves for Nathan's death even though they didn't do anything  
> . . .  
> It has a happy ending?  
> So- the title is taken from and adapted from 'One Week' by barenakedladies which I don't really reccomend you listen to while reading this, as it doesn't- really fit the tone? At all? I mean, do so if you want but I really reccomend against it-

**Day 0**

Nikki vanishes with Nathan's corpse, leaving a faint whooshing sound and a pile of bloody organs behind. 

They all stand around the blood splatters. Simon looks shaken, Curtis looks sick, and Alisha has been openly crying since Nathan asked them to serenade him. Kelly's refused to admit that she's done the same thing, but Klaus knows her, knows that she has a soft spot for his brother, and ergo he knows that she's been crying too.

And Klaus? Klaus just- the excitement is gone, the adrenaline is fading, he’s seeing everything behind his eyes whether he has them open or closed (he’s never seen his brother die like that, all the blood and viscera and oh God the _blood-_ ) and there’s screaming in his ears- _Nathan’s_ screaming, caught on loop, _stuck_ on loop, just bloodcurdling _screaming-_ and Klaus is- he just- he’s- he doesn’t _feel._ He’s empty. It’s like someone reached inside him and just- _ripped_ something out, something that wasn't supposed to be taken.

(Beneath the ringing in his ears, he can faintly hear his heart beating. He can feel it, too, against his ribcage, and he wonders if the others can hear it.)

"What- What do we do with the blood?" Alisha asks after a moment. Her voice is shaky and watery and _so fucking scared._

Klaus rationalizes it's because she's never _seen_ Nathan die, but. He's seen Nathan die, and his hands are shaking.

"I don't know," Klaus replies. His voice sounds foreign to his own ears. "I don't- I don't know."

His brain stutters, stalls. He can't get Nathan's screams out of his head.

"We need to clean it," Simon says, breaking them out of their collective fogs. As always, he's the voice of reason in their little group, even though Klaus is pretty sure his hands are shaking too. "We can't let someone find it."

"What the hell do we clean blood with?" Curtis asks. He sounds pissed, but there's an underlayer of fear to his voice. 

Klaus supposes they all have that, really.

"Bleach," Simon answers. 

"Just straight?" Klaus asks. Simon hesitates, then shakes his head.

"No," he said. "I think it's diluted with water. Erm…" he screwed up his face as he tried to remember. "I think it's a 1 to 9 ratio, bleach to water."

Klaus doesn't bother asking how he knows. 

"Won't that look suspicious?" Curtis asks. "A bunch of us buying shittons of bleach at a Tesco?"

"Cover it up with less suspicious purchases," Klaus says. "Buy a packet of tampons if you have to."

He runs a hand over his face, then turns away from the bloodstains. "One of us has to go help Nikki with Nathan," he mutters. "Any takers?"

Nobody volunteers. Klaus can't say he's surprised, but a brittle smile goes across his face anyways; "Right," he says. "Well, I'll go, since he's my brother. I suppose the rest of you-"

"I'll go," Alisha blurts, and they all stare at her in shock.

Klaus squints at her; "You want to go with me to help patch up my dead brother?"

Alisha goes pale, but stands her ground. "No," she admits. "But…"

She trails off into silence, then looks over at Kelly. The two must have a silent conversation, either with woman's intuition or Kelly's telepathy, because Kelly's features soften and she nods at Klaus.

He raises an eyebrow, but shrugs it off and instead extends an elbow to the petite brunette. She takes it, cringing at the blood splatters decorating his front.

Abruptly, Klaus realizes they're all covered in blood, Kelly especially, and his stomach twists; "Christ," he mutters, then turns to the rest of them. "See if you guys can find a way to get rid of the blood- we look like extras from a horror movie."

A chill goes through the group, and Klaus wonders if they're realizing exactly _who's_ blood they're all splattered with.

"We'll go to Tesco," Simon says suddenly, nodding to him and Curtis. He turns to Kelly; "It's… probably better if you stay here," he says gently, and, _no shit,_ Kelly's wearing a blood-splattered wedding dress with sneakers. She more than any of them looks like 'an extra from a horror movie.'

(Well. Maybe not Nathan.)

Things start blurring for Klaus around the time Curtis texts Nikki for her address. Part of him wants to reach into his pocket for something, _anything,_ but he can barely force himself to walk the trek to Nikki's apartment, much less light up a blunt to dull whatever the hell it is he's feeling.

Nikki's right pissed when she opens the door. Her front is soaked with blood, and Klaus has a brief thought about how that's _probably_ not good for her heart.

He wants to ask if she's popped a stitch, because if she has he can probably fix it for her, but instead what comes tumbling out is; "Nathan?"

Nikki jerks her head to the back; "In the bathroom," she said, turning around to look back into her house. "It's- It's not pretty." She warns, and Klaus barely resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"I know," he says instead, striding into the house. Alisha is just behind him. "Did he get blood anywhere?"

(It's a funny way to phrase it. 'Did _he_ get blood anywhere?' It makes it sound like Nathan purposely went around spraying blood out of his carotid artery or something, which is funny, except it's really not, because Nathan is currently lying in the bathroom and he's very very dead.)

Nikki nods off down the hall. If Klaus squints a bit he can see a thin trail of blood leading across the floor; "I appeared in my room," Nikki says, and she sounds disgruntled, which throws Klaus for a loop, because his brother is _dead,_ what's there to be disgruntled about?

But he supposes Nikki's only seen their very best sides- their strong sides, the sides made of diamond and platinum and every other foul thing on Earth that hides a world of hurt. Everything behind those sides are made of uranium and plutonium, radium and radon- poisonous and toxic.

"We'll help you clean up," Alisha says, and Klaus realizes he was silent for too long. Zoning out again, there's no _time_ for that, Number Four. Go clean up your brother.

So he does.

Nathan's in a bad state. Where his abdomen used to be is a huge gaping _hole._ The skin around is torn and jagged and _shredded,_ just like the insides. If Klaus tilts his head to the side a little, he thinks he can see his brother's spinal cord.

“Oh, Jesus-"

He turns around. Alisha is standing behind him, and she's gone pale, leaning against the doorframe for support. 

A wave of pity washes over him. Klaus is used to this. Klaus sees mangled bodies whether his eyes are open or closed, he sees gaping death wounds whether he wants to or not, but Alisha _doesn't._ Really, the worst that she's seen was the first probation worker, and honestly, that wasn't that bad.

This is worse.

He waves her away; "Go help Nikki with the blood," he says softly, and wishes there were other things he could tell her. He wishes that he could tell her that Nathan would appreciate her being here, but that he wouldn't want to make her cry. That he doesn't- _blame_ her for this happening, because he can tell Alisha sort of does. Whether it's because she couldn't Rumor Driver Guy- and isn't it fucked up? He killed his _brother_ and Klaus doesn't even know his name- or because of survivor's guilt (which he assumes they're all feeling, to an extent) she's… she's not ok.

But now- now just- Klaus can't, right now. His head is spinning like it's weaving straw into gold, and there's a wordless voice in the back of his head yelling at him. He can't figure out what it's saying, and it's not that it's in German or English or French or any of the other languages he knows, it's that it's not any _words_ , but it's still yelling at him, and it's making him feel sick and lightheaded and there's a pressure behind his eyes but the tears won't come and he can't- he can't-

He exhales lowly and rests his head on the edge of the bathtub, willing the world to stop spinning, for his vision to stop blackening at the edges because it's happening and he- he really needs it _not_ to be, because he needs to be _strong_ for Nathan, for his _little brother_ who just had a _chainsaw shoved through his stomach_ because even if Nathan doesn't- carry trauma past the point of death, it's hard to remember that when he still screams like he's dying, which, _no shit,_ he was.

A giggle forces it's way past Klaus' lips, and he clamps his hands over his mouth, eyes going wide. More start to come, and suddenly he's laughing hysterically, hitting his fist against the floor because he _can't._

Alisha comes back in, and she's concerned, and Klaus wants to tell her that he's fine, that he's ok, but he _can't stop laughing,_ and it's not funny, it's really not funny, but he just- 

He _can't._

Alisha crouches down next to him, and wraps her arms around him. Her shoes are in a puddle of Nathan's blood and by the time Klaus realizes that he's been sobbing for a solid five minutes.

His nail polish is chipped, it's covered with Nathan's blood, and for some reason this makes Klaus cry harder, because his brother- he's _dead,_ and Klaus can't.

His sobs taper off, and he's left leaning against Alisha, absolutely exhausted. His eyes hurt to close, they feel thick and puffy and his head feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton, but he has a _job_ to do, so he pulls away from Alisha and spins the tap.

She's quiet while he pulls the top half of Nathan's jumpsuit away. It and the T-shirt underneath are completely ruined, both by blood and the gaping hole through them, a perfect match for the hole going through Nathan.

Alisha is quiet while he runs the water, washing away the blood so he can see what's happening. 

There's a lot of blood. He doesn't know if it will clog Nikki's pipes, but he hopes it doesn't.

Now that he can see what he's doing, he can see that his earlier idea of stitches just- it won't work, mostly because there isn't anything _to_ stitch. 

Klaus feels very out of his depth.

**Day 1**

It's been- 18 hours, give or take 6, and Nathan is _still_ dead as a doornail, sitting crumpled up in the disused storeroom upstairs. Klaus is tetchy, and scared, and filling in for his brother and hating every damn minute of it.

It hurts his hands to grip the paint roller while they paint over graffiti and car stains and every other foul thing covering the tunnels because his hands still haven't healed from when he got his tattoos touched up, which, _holy_ _shit,_ that wasn’t even a _week_ ago. Hell, _two fucking days ago_ he and Nathan were sitting in the Community Center kitchen, getting drunk and talking about his _therapist!_

"You need to calm down, mate," Kelly says in an undertone after Klaus gets into a verbal sparring match with Shaun for the fourteenth time in two hours. "He'll realize you're not Nathan if you don't keep your head down."

Klaus grits his teeth, white-knuckling his paint roller in spite of the pain racing through his hands; "I am calm."

Kelly in turn gives him her best deadpan stare, but it softens a moment later, and _fuck_ Klaus knows what comes next; "He'll be alright."

"He's never taken this long to come back," Klaus says, then hesitates, because there's a thought that started flowing around his head when he woke up this morning and realized Nathan was still very very dead and he's scared to vocalize it, because what if that makes it come true? 

But it's eating away at him. It's twisting and turning and chewing his guts up and it makes him feel sick and nauseated and like he's a million miles away from his body, and the words come tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them; "What if he doesn't come back?"

Kelly freezes, then shakes her head; "No," she says, and Klaus can tell he's scared her. He can’t feel sorry, though, not when that very same fear is currently punching him out of his own head. "No, no, he will.”

“How do you _know?_ ” Klaus asks, and he feels _awful,_ because he’s doubting his brother and he’s entertaining a _horrible_ idea, but he just- he’s _scared,_ and he can’t help it.

Kelly shakes her head; “He’ll come back,” she says, and he can’t tell if the confidence in her voice is genuine or fake. “It’ll just take him a little longer than usual, alright?”

Her words do pull the logical side of his brain to the front- Nathan’s never been killed by a chainsaw before, of course it’ll take him a bit longer to come back, he has no practice- and e tries to hold onto that logic, because it does give him a smidgen of relief from the anxiety currently sitting somewhere around his sternum.

But it’s an uphill battle. It feels like he’s stuck in the middle of the ocean, clinging desperately to a piece of driftwood while a storm rages all around him, and the moments when the logic takes over he manages to get a better grip, but then the anxiety sends a wave over his head, and it’s _hard._

The logic doesn’t last as long the more he thinks about it, but-

"Oi! I'm not paying you to sit around talking, get back to work!"

Shaun goes home with a black eye that day. Nathan gets another day of community service.

**Day 2**

They say there are 5 stages of grief. Klaus is one to speedrun everything in his life and this is no different, but he gets stuck on anger for a _very_ long time.

On a completely unrelated note, Nathan has now racked up 3 extra days of community service.

He and Kelly are sitting up with Nathan, keeping an eye on him and waiting and _hoping_ for him to just- pop up, like he always does.

There's no 'popping up.'

Klaus is starting to get worried, now. That little wordless screaming that'd been happening in his head the day Nathan was killed is now- _clearer_ . The words are more defined, easier to understand, and so much _louder._ The volume hasn't changed, but Klaus- Klaus can't ignore it as easily as now, and it's started to take it's toll.

His skin's just starting to itch when Kelly asks; "Not to be crass, mate, but what the hell kind of scar is this one going to leave?"

It's so completely morbid and out-of-left-field that Klaus laughs; "You know, I don't really know," he replies. "Probably a starburst. If I could stitch it, I would, but…" he gestures aimlessly. "There's nothing _to_ stitch."

Kelly falls silent. Klaus wonders if perhaps he's said something wrong, when Kelly asks why his hands are shaking.

"Hmm?" Oh. His hands _are_ shaking. "Haven't the faintest."

Well. _That's_ a lie.

~~~

**Day 3**

By the third (and final) day, Klaus is nigh-hysterical, gone incoherent with panic.

"He's not back yet!" He hissed, shaking anyone who would listen. "He's not back!"

Curtis forcefully pushes him away; "Stay calm," he says, even though he doesn't sound particularly 'calm' either. “This is just- it’s just taking him a bit longer than usual because he’s never died this way before!”

Klaus isn’t listening. The ‘wordless’ voice in his head isn’t wordless anymore, it’s clear, it’s loud, and it comes with flavoring- _guilt._

 _Your fault!_ Klaus’ mind screams at him. _It’s YOUR FAULT! If you weren’t HIGH, you could’ve taken the fall for him! Nathan is DEAD right now because you were too fucking high to save him!_

_IT’S YOUR FAULT._

Klaus’ hands are shaking, and whether it’s because of withdrawals, which he thinks he’s starting to hit, or because of the power of the realization that’s been wrought on him-

He _killed_ his brother. He- he good as drove the chainsaw through his stomach, because now Nathan is _gone-_

In a fit of rage, he flushes every drug he has down the toilet, then immediately regrets it when the spectres show up.

There’s Gary and the Probation Worker, and now Sally is there as well, and they are so _angry,_ but Klaus- Klaus can’t bring himself to take anything to make them go away because he _killed his brother._

There’s not enough penance in the world to atone for that.

Ben finds him later, holed up in the minifridge with his hands clamped around his ears. He sits down next to him, weighs his words, then says; _“Nathan wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself.”_

Klaus says nothing.

Ben continues; _“You remember how he used to get when you guys were younger, right? Klaus, he_ cried. _Sounded like a goddamned banshee- all because_ you _were hurt.”_

Klaus grits his teeth.

 _“If you’re going to get sober,”_ Ben says softly. _“Do if_ for _Nathan, not_ because _of him.”_

He vanishes. Klaus ruminates on his words a little.

He was right, of course. Nathan used to- well, he used to work himself up into _hysterics_ when they were little, all because _Klaus_ , who was always a bit of a crybaby, used to work _himself_ up into hysterics. Usually about ghosts, though there was that time when Luther broke his little toy boat and boy oh boy was that a _day-_

Reginald never liked it, as a matter of fact he _hated_ it because any show of empathy was something that needed to be stamped out as soon as it appeared, but Nathan was a stubborn bastard with _very_ strong emotions.

Case in point: if Klaus cried, Nathan cried.

Of course, as they got older and Klaus cottoned onto this pattern and its relation to Reginald and the Cupboard, he stopped. It wasn’t that tears were for the weak, as Reginald liked to preach, Lord knows that Klaus has been through some _shit_ and still somehow managed to come out of it alive, if _incredibly_ teary-eyed, but the trade-off wasn’t worth it. A couple of measly tears in exchange for Nathan having a panic attack in a goddamned cupboard?

It was never fair.

And as Klaus studied the few remaining blunts and little baggies he had stashed throughout the Community Center in the little nooks only he knew about, he came to a decision.

He’d get sober. But _for_ Nathan, like Ben had said, not _because_ of him.

And of course, because this is just how life works sometimes, the _minute_ Klaus flushes his last drug down the drain he hears a weak voice call out; “Klaus? Klaus, where are you?”

His eyes go wide, and he _bolts_ from the washroom, tearing around the corner to see his twin leaning against the wall.

He looks like _shit._ His eyes are bloodshot, his skin is pale and looks clammy even from over here, but he’s _alive,_ and really that’s all Klaus really cares about.

They exchange a short conversation- Klaus thinks he asks something about what the hell he’s doing, Nathan slurs out something about passing out, then drops to the floor in a dead faint, but it’s alright.

He wakes up again later, and he’s far more coherent. They have a short conversation- once again Klaus is amazed at their shared capacity to assign blame to themselves even when they did _nothing-_ and he just. It’s strange to him, in a way. Not even 24 hours ago he was going mad worrying and panicking about his twin, and now he’s- now he’s just _talking_ to him.

It’ll give him whiplash if he thinks about it too much, so he doesn’t.

Unsurprisingly, Nathan is surprised when he finds out Klaus is trying to go sober, then almost sort of terrified when he finds out _why,_ and Klaus- Klaus can sort-of understand that. It’s not like the _last_ time he died went over well for _anyone,_ but fuck it. 

At least now he’ll have the damn _option._

**Author's Note:**

> So- a comment from dotdotdotcolonO was actually what inspired this whole thing, so thank you! Very much so


End file.
